Observance of 40th anniversary of Kent State shootings is part political rally, part remembrance

Scott Shaw / The Plain DealerAt the 40th anniversary of the Kent State shootings, a group carries candles to be placed in front of posters of the four students who were killed.

KENT, Ohio -- Forty years ago, the air was choked with tear gas and the hillside was trampled by army boots and stained with blood.

On Tuesday afternoon, May 4, 2010, Blanket Hill at Kent State University was awash in music. People hugged long-lost friends, or sat on chairs and blankets, waiting expectantly. A breeze stirred the daffodils planted to honor the military dead of the Vietnam War, and ruffled the black and white photos of the four students who died during that war's protest.

Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer and William Schroder are frozen in time, forever 19, forever 20. Their contemporaries, the activists of the Kent State era, are grandparents now.

"Forty years is a biblical unit of time," marveled Mark Rudd, a co-organizer of the radical Weather Underground, his beard now streaked with gray. "We've learned a lot," he told the crowd. "It's been 40 years and still we're in a mess. I've got a grandson. I want him to live in a world in which he experiences peace and democracy."

"Transcend the tragedy by turning it into the politics of hope," fellow Weather Underground founder and now law school professor Bernadine Dohrn urged students assembling for an immigration-rights march after the anniversary event.

View full sizeScott Shaw / The Plain DealerHundreds of people sit on the Kent State commons and on the slope of Blanket Hill to watch Tuesday's 40th anniversary commemoration.

"You have hearts, you have passions, you have minds," Rudd told the the crowd, which numbered in the hundreds. "You can figure it out, the same as us."

"You have hearts, you have passions, you have minds," Rudd told the the crowd, which numbered in the hundreds. "You can figure it out, the same as us."

"You have hearts, you have passions, you have minds," Rudd told the the crowd, which numbered in the hundreds. "You can figure it out, the same as us."

Much of the afternoon, though, was a commemoration of the dead.

Sandra Scheuer, struck in the neck by an Ohio National Guardsman's bullet, was a girl with a bubbly personality who was always doing things for others, said a note from a friend that's preserved in a scrapbook kept by her sorority, Alpha Xi Delta.

"We think about her every day," said the Kent State chapter's current president, Sarah Franciosa.

Jeffrey Miller was a drummer and a radio DJ whose 5-foot-6 stature earned him the on-air name of "Short Mort," recalled his older brother, Russ.

On the night of the shootings, still unaware that Jeff had been killed, Russ Miller watched TV news reports about Kent State with their grandmother in the Bronx. She asked if Jeff had gone to the rally. "No doubt," Russ Miller answered, knowing his brother's strong feelings against the war. "But I wasn't concerned, because I knew he would keep his head down."

Miller died, shot in the mouth.

Florence Schroeder used a walker to make her way to the stage. "On May 4, 1970, I was 50 years old, with brown hair and good legs," she said. "Today, I'm 90 and can no longer pitch batting practice."

Her son was an Eagle Scout and an honor student who was walking to class when he was shot in the back from a rifle more than a football field's length away. "The death of a child is very hard, but life goes on," his mother said. She read the last line of a poem he wrote: "Learning from the past is a prime consideration."

"She sat on the hill where you now sit," he said. "She walked on those paths where you now stand. Her laughter used to dance through the branches of these trees."

She was shot in the side as Levine pulled her behind a car for shelter from the gunfire. She fell, mortally wounded, in his arms.

Levine, who has rarely spoken publicly about the events of that day, made an impassioned and at times angry appeal for justice for the shootings. Eight Guardsmen were indicted on federal charges, but a judge dismissed the case. A civil lawsuit was settled without an admission of wrongdoing.

Barry Levine, the boyfriend of Kent State shooting victim Allison Krause, speaks at the 40th anniversary observance of the May 4 massacre. Listeners may find some language objectionable.

"What I hear Allison saying is that there is a lingering issue, some unfinished business," Levine said. "To this day, nobody has stood up and been held accountable. . . . nobody has stood up and said, 'I'm sorry, it was a mistake.' Today, 40 years later, the very men who pulled the triggers, who gave the orders, and who gave permission, actually have been excused. And I think there's something wrong with that picture."